


Freewill

by Norickayer



Series: Postcards from Elsewhere: A Collection of Young Avengers one-shots [11]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, Loki is sometimes a girl and never ever a guy, Trope Subversion, Underage Characters, Worldbuilding, absolutely no sex, relationships mentioned but not focused on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4199808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norickayer/pseuds/Norickayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wait, this makes no sense,” Loki complained.<br/>Teddy glanced back at his gerry-rigged presentation board. As he suspected, he’d drawn the diagram correctly. </p><p>Teddy began to regret offering this lesson on human sexuality to his alien teammates.</p><p>(An absolutely gen A/B/O fic, because of reasons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freewill

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I generally avoid A/B/O fics because I'm not interested in that rather creative flavor of porn. But recently I've been introduced to the somewhat under-appreciated world of gen A/B/O fic and A/B/O worldbuilding, which I find way more interesting.
> 
> This was originally posted to tumblr.

“Wait, this makes no sense,” Loki complained.

Teddy glanced back at his jerry-rigged presentation board. As he suspected, he’d drawn the diagram correctly. He rolled his eyes. “You’re just confused because you learned about human sexuality from the internet in like three months.”

“That may be true-“

“I thought humans only have two sexes,” Noh-Varr interrupted, to Teddy’s relief.

Teddy winced and wiggled his hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Kind of?” he offered. “There’s two reproductive roles, inseminator and incubator, but there’s actually a lot of variation in actual anatomy. And, well, then there’s the Alpha-Omega libido.”

“ _This_ I know about,” Loki said proudly.

“You are fourteen,” Teddy replied, “I really hope you don’t.”

“Hey, I’ve gone through puberty!”

“Asgardian puberty, maybe. Humans are different.”

“But this… biological imperative to mate, it’s limited to the Alphas and Omegas of the species?” Noh-Varr clarified.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Teddy replied. “I mean, there’s some exceptions, especially among Mutants, but that’s the general trend.”

Loki gave Noh-Varr a fearful look. “And Kate is-“

“I’m not at liberty to discuss,” Noh-Varr said quickly.

“Okay, fine.  I mean this whole thing sounds fake, but whatever,” Loki began, “But if humans have all this complex stuff going on, however did _you_ think you were human for so long, Teddy?”

Teddy shrugged. He often asked himself the same question. “A lot of people are Betas. I just assumed I was one of them.”

“And Betas are infertile, or merely alibidinous?” Noh-Varr asked.

Teddy grimaced, and began to regret offering this lesson on human sexuality to his alien teammates.

“Well…”

-

One of the many reasons Steve Rogers was against a teenage superhero team was that he had been a teenager once, had seen a lot of teens on the streets of New York in the 40s, unsupervised and immature. They thought they knew what they wanted because their bodies craved it. Couples that got together because they were the only Alpha and Omega in their classes. They mistook lust for compatibility and what followed was never pretty.

A group of teens, new to their urges, unsupervised, and with secret identities?

No, said Steve Rogers, we don’t have the time or resources to keep this from going badly.

-

All things considered, it wasn’t as bad as Captain America feared.

With only one Alpha on the team, and two Omegas, things could’ve gotten messy. But Cassie was yet young, and still developing the Alpha instincts she’d have as an adult. Eli was old enough to have a handle on his urges, and besides, he had a large family that was used to keeping watch when one of their children went into heat.

There weren’t any adults to look after Tommy during his heats, but his friends managed to make up for it.

“Fucking shit fuck,” Tommy cursed, his white hair drenched in sweat. It was like running a mile with a boner. It was like having a wet dream while lying in bed with a fever.

In short, it sucked.

“It’ll be okay,” his brother cooed. “You’re almost through.”

Eli snorted, a noise that sounded suspiciously like “ _liar_ ”.

“And you, fucking snot-muncher,” Tommy continued, “we’re supposed to be _identical_. How come you’re not right here suffering with me?”

Billy froze. His muscles clenched, involuntarily squeezing Tommy’s hand.

No one had asked him about that before. No one knew to ask, not since his parents moved him to a different district for high school.

For years, everyone only knew him as a Beta.

“I- I’m not-“ Billy stuttered. “I’m not an Omega.”

“Yeah, genius, I see that,” Tommy complained. He gritted his teeth and tried not to whimper.

Billy didn’t know how to explain. Didn’t know how to put it into words without saying “I never want to be in this position. I never want this to be me. _This isn’t me_.”

So he didn’t.

“We’re going to get you through this,” Eli told Tommy. He pressed a hand against Tommy’s back, the film of sweat causing it to stick slightly to his t-shirt. “You can do this. Every Omega goes through their first heats without a mate. That doesn’t mean you’re alone.”

“You don’t even like me,” Tommy moaned. He squirmed on the secondhand sofa Kate had found for their headquarters.

“I don’t have to like you,” Eli replied. “We’re a team.”

-

The shitty thing about being an Omega is that some part of you really just needed to be taken care of.

And okay, maybe that wasn’t shitty for everyone, but when the only person looking out for you has always been yourself, that kind of thinking gets dangerous, fast.

For America Chavez, nowhere was safe enough when she started her heat cycles at 14. With no family, no home, there was no one to hold her hand and reassure her when the aches and need wreaked her body.

She kept a list of dimensions without Alphas and Omegas, and made sure to spend her heat cycles there, where at least she couldn’t be found by some stranger with a good sense of smell.

-

Kate Bishop was in the spotlight from the time she could walk. She made polite small-talk at Stark family parties, was glimpsed in the corners of candid paparazzi photos. Everyone knew she was The Bishop Girl, an Alpha, Her Parents Are So Proud.

So when she first went out in public just days into her sophomore year of highschool, smelling like a Beta instead, everyone knew what she’d done.

Instead of coy questions about what Designers she wore or which heir she’d be taking to prom, reporters began to yell accusations, questions about the morality of hormone-replacement therapy.

“It’s playing God!” Justin Hammer was quoted on the 11 o’clock news. J. Jonah Jamison invited viwers to weigh in via an online poll on the Daily Bugle website.

Kate buried her face in her pillow and reminded herself that it was all worth it.

-

She actually noticed his scent before he recognized his face.

“Hey, are you old enough to be at this club?” she asked the shirtless guy dancing near the bar.

He was tall, taller than any of her teammates save Teddy, but he smelled like a little kid. Undifferentiated. No sign of Alpha, Omega, or even Beta.

Then Noh-Varr turned around and gave her a grin, and Kate thought that maybe hooking up with someone who wasn’t drenched in pheromones might be a great idea.

**Author's Note:**

> I very nearly tagged this fic as "a fundamental misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics". But I didn't.
> 
> I might continue this? There are probably some more scenes to write, especially about Teddy growing up as an alien in this society, about Eli, about David and the mutants, and about Cassie&Jonas. We'll see. Maybe I'll even write about Kate-the-Alpha and her decision to become a Beta via medical intervention.
> 
> Also I am choosing to interpret "male omegas" and "female alphas" to mean that in this universe, [western?] society managed to maintain the gender binary while accepting and integrating binary trans people into their gender system. Actually I don't think gender is assigned at all probably. Due to genital structure at birth they can generally say "this baby will be either a Beta or Alpha at puberty" or "This baby will be either a Beta or Omega at puberty", so to some extent a/b/o status is assigned rather than gender.
> 
> So basically this is me telling y'all that Kate & Cassie are trans girls in this fic, and Eli, Billy & Tommy are trans boys, although the social context they exist in doesn't have the same concept of transness. I am deliberately avoiding mentioning or focusing on anyone's genitals, because it's not actually relevant to the kinds of stories I want to tell.


End file.
